May 2007 

 

By Jeanne Rudbeck

Olive oil is the new wine. Or so you'd think at A L’Olivier, a Nice boutique named after a product that’s been around since the island nymph gave the shipwrecked hero a massage with it in Homer’s Odyssey.

Nice has long been the center of French olive oil production. Wars and real estate speculation closed many of the olive mills that dotted the hills around the city in the 19th century. Yet traditional methods of making the liquid gold are preserved, as is pride in product

In Vieux Nice (the old town), the evolution of the olive's status is mirrored in two shops within steps of each other.

Alziari, renowned for their olive oil since 1936, enjoys near cult status among chefs. Dim and cramped, the shop reeks authenticity. Across the street is the new kid on the block. A L'Olivier is a cross between a hi-tech medical research lab and a Prada flagship concept store.

This temple devoted to the the humble fruit is presided over by a young man acting as high priest. He offers tastings from among the 50 varieties, served with tidbits of history and legend: Olive oil was believed to have magic properties; it was used to anoint noble heads throughout history. He is using a vocabulary I haven’t heard since yuppies discovered wine. He knows which "nose" best complements asparagus: truffle flavored.

There is range of vinegars and of syrups in flavors like fig, rose, cardamom or melon for dribbling on crepes or, if you are post-modernist, on cheese or salads.

A L'Olivier is good for gifts. If lugging a kilo tin of lemon-ginger-infused oil onto your flight seems impractical, you might manage a small flask of passion-fruit-pulp vinegar. Even easier to pack are olive oil soaps, candles or chocolats a l’huile d’olive. Among the kitchen gadgets I am drawn to the red and black lacquer Peugeot salt and pepper mills, reputed to be the best in the world. But my inner pre-modernist settles on the mortar and pestle carved of olive wood.

Prices are reasonable for a gastro-chic shop...until you get to the salt section. When did salt go snob?

Our high priest is speaking in devout tones: "Sprinkle a little in your hand. Taste one of the tiny flakes, a flavor locked in our genes. It has been used as a monetary basis, provoked wars, consecrated crowned heads."

Hold on. Didn't he just say that olive oil was for crowned heads?
 
A L'Olivier calls it "salish" and it comes not only in flakes and crystals, but also in a block which you place on your table with a Parmesan grater for dinner guests to scrape it. Or lick, if your guests happen to be horses.

The Washington salish has been smoked with alderwood; there is black or pink salt from Hawaii and a Chardonnay oak smoked salish. At $7 to $10 for 50 grams isn't that about $100 a pound? An elegant addition to your table setting could be the tiny glass salt dish with tiny spoon. At these prices you won't want to have a dispenser the size of the Morton's box.

On second thought, maybe salt is the new wine.

A L'Olivier
7 Rue Saint-Francois de Paule
Nice, France

The original A L'Olivier boutique, founded in 1822, is in the Marais in Paris at 23 rue de Rivoli.